you don't want to put fertilizer into the soil that early ;/ may I ask, are you using a seed starting mix? If you get a seedling with a shell attached to it, you can very lightly mist it with water, might help it fall off.

I am not using a seed starting mix. Just a potting mix. I'm moving them to other larger pots before moving outside. This is my first year gardening on my own so I'm improvising and learning as I go. I've read that seeding mixes are looser than soil and easier to transplant from. I bought a couple of kits and they had a weird soil disk I soaked in water and it came up weird like soft hay (only thing I can compare it to). It holds water differently, this soil when wet can be packed like wet snow into a snowball. If I buy some seed starting mix do you remove the entire plant (roots and all) from it then move into real soil? Would that mean you could reuse the seed mix the next year? These seeds don't have fertilizer in the mix but my later ones do. Have I possibly hurt them this way?

Thank you very much! I wasn't sure what is going on with these. My tomatoes are starting to grow but my peppers are holding off. The packet of seeds said I could get a head start on cucumbers inside and I want to grow them in containers since the backyard is very clay-like and I've been forbidden from digging in it again, lol. I thought I'd try growing them upside down so I don't have to stake them but we've got a big deck so I can use some of the railings for support and try both ways to see how they grow.

Just so long as you know that if these don't survive transplanting you can easily direct seed them in the containers. Direct seeded cukes will quickly catch up to and pass up any transplants.

Peppers take quite a long time to germinate unless you use a heat mat for them and are very slow growing so next time they need to be started in a tray of their own or one that can be separated from those seeds with normal germination times.

Dave

Thanks! My Cayenne Peppers are finally sprouting but I have some green and a mix of hot peppers not yet sprouting. I don't have a heating mat so I'll have to see what I can do to makeshift something. Maybe having them elevated over a heating cube to heat the bottoms or something like that.

Peppers can take a really long time to sprout, heating mat can really help that, what zone are you in?

My zone is 5b but I'm not sure how to use that number.

also if you don't have a heat mat, you can try the top of the fridge, it worked for some people

Sometimes the seedling has a hard time releasing from the seed coat and that cotyledon leaf gets damaged.

For years, I sowed my cucumbers directly in the garden, but the last couple of years I've had issues with them not germinating (either they rotted or sometime got to them). I now start them inside a few weeks before planting them out and they do fine.

"My zone is 5b but I'm not sure how to use that number."

Just Google 'gardening in zone 5b' for all sorts of info. To add it to your posts here along with your city or state location just go to your profile page here and fill in all the blanks. Then it will be automatic.

Dave

Cool thanks I'll do that!